Homebound
by mercurial2010
Summary: A five chapter fic (with epilogue and prologue), Stendan, Brendan POV. On the 23rd of Febuary Brendan leaves Ste and the kids to go and get some milk, he doesn't return until the 25th of March. Does Ste know why? And will he let Brendan explain? Rated M for the ending of one chapter. Betad by the lovely TracesOfTrueLove.
1. Prologue

**Homebound**

**A/N:**

What can I say but thank you for the support, I hope I'm nearly making up for my absence!

Thank you to my wonderful beta TracesOfTrueLove who's really helped me with this.

**About this fic:**

It was originally for part of the "more than words series" the prompt: "I'll always come home to you" but apparently I really can't write one shots.

This is a plot fic – and before you say it I know what you're all thinking, but the good news is it's so nearly finished I have 4 out of 5 chapters written, the other good news is it's being betad so it will be finished – by pain of death. I completely get it if y'all want to wait till it's all up to read it though.

Also it's important to know that I'm using a little artistic license with this:

Firstly I'm not going to call him uncle Brendan when Daddy Brendan sounds so much better ('cept for that one "Uncle Bwwwendan won" moment) and if Doug gets the Daddy treatment than Brendan better!

Amy never left with the kids. I have issues with the whole Stamy thing anyway so I thought it was best to let you explain that to yourselves.

Most importantly, for those that follow spoilers (I don't), I've made up my own little Walker showdown.

**Warning:**

Smut but that's not a surprise is it really? And it's only relevant to the last couple of chapters (but very relevant to those!)

Also M for language.

I promise you from the bottom of my heart that this will be finished and shortly, however I still accept being screamed at if that's your cup of tea. You know I love you all so please let me know what you think.

Here's for the show:

**11.45 pm 25/3/2013 Ste's bedroom**

"So did you fuck Walker?" The question comes as though it's been trapped between his teeth, like the effort of keeping it in has stiffened his tongue and that it was nothing more than a muscle spasm.

It wasn't the question I was preparing myself for. The silence shared between our resting hearts had been filled with the possible things he might ask. I had been inventing questions in the dismissive joking tone that he would use so I wouldn't know my stupidity had bothered him.

There could have been the anger, _"Four weeks Brendan - you left to get milk and you were gone for a fucking month! Bloody long queue in Priceslice that!"  
_Or fear, _"So, just so I'm clear and I don't do anything proper stupid like book us into a hotel for your birthday again, how long you planning on sticking this time?"_  
Or shame and self-doubt, _"It wasn't like I didn't expect you to, we spoke about change like we were talking about your clothes, but it was never like you proper told me what was going on with you was it?"  
_Or the anguish of the prolonged suffering, _"you could have called just once, fuck it I would have been happy with a text, right just to know you were alright, the news gets a little boring when you're trailing it for dead bodies."  
_

I had answers for all of those questions, but I hadn't prepared myself for the jealousy, the facing-it-straight-on honest brutality that he's actually presenting me with - I guess my boy grew up.

He's angry at the laugh from my lips.  
"What?" He huffs, covering his body with the sheet despite the fact I can still taste all of him on my tongue, "It's not like you haven't done it before - twice. Right it's not a proper random question, actually."  
It's a random question if you knew even a little of this last month Steven, if you knew that this evening, having you in my arms, was the first time I felt safe enough to close my eyes for a very long time - of course I don't say that out loud.  
"Before you killed him did you fuck him?"  
"Who says I killed him?" I ask - an automatic defence mechanism.  
Turning his head to the side, Steven just gives me that look that only he can do, the one that knows everything I've ever done and somehow still accepts me, wants me, finds my naked skin next to his bearable.

"No, Steven I didn't fuck him."  
"No? Have someone el-"  
His words, the jealousy that's born out of fear and abandonment, are silenced because I'm propped up on my hand, my elbow bent into his bed, and I'm giving him that look, the one I know he can read - the 'I don't want anybody but you' look.  
There's a moment of silence, the length of his heartbeat.  
"A month, impressive stuff" he says in his mocking voice, but I can see that grin now, just faintly, around the edges. "That's pretty much a vow of celibacy for you aint it?"  
"Not anymore, I don't just fuck anymore," my honest words make themselves into lover's whispers, and it's in his eyes now - that grin.  
"And who said I was celibate?" I say, wiggling the fingers on my free hand, delighting in the unhindered laugh from his lips. And then just when I can see the merriment twinkle in his eyes I give him that look again so he knows – I need him to know he's my fantasy.


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N:**

As a sign of good faith I've posted two chapters tonight, and I'm very happy to post a third if you all want.

**About this fic:**

Eh? What was all that about? I'll let Brendan explain…

**Chapter One**

**8.25 am, ****25/3/2013. ****Priceslice**

"Daddy Brendan!"

Looking back, I can't remember what had bought me into the local shop first thing that morning. Since I've been…back, for now we'll just say back, my daily routine had become pretty similar - leave the house early enough to avoid Seamus, go to the club or hang around town scaring the locals and generally avoiding any reminders that at one point in my miserable existence I had something that at least resembled a life.

In particular my days were filled with avoiding Steven, but the problem with dating a bloke who's a father is that avoidance is futile. See you can skulk around, rush past him, avoid them in the street, pull your jacket up and generally act like a low-life criminal frightened of being caught, and you will still be found. It's easy enough to avoid the bloke, probably because there's a part of them that wants to avoid you too. It's the kids who don't understand the etiquette and will search for you like it's a game of hide and seek - and bloody find you as well, like rats seeking land.

"Daddy Brendan!"

"Princess Leah!" I respond plastering more excitement than I could remember onto my face. But something weird happened when I bent down to pick her up, as usual she still wrapped her little brown boots around my hips, her hands going around my neck as she bent to kiss my cheek, but then it was like she gave me an infusion of happiness. The weirdest bit was that I realised I was actually smiling, it wasn't fake anymore.

That's the other annoying thing about blokes who are fathers, why do their children have to be such fucking little diamonds?

"I haven't seen you in forever!" She sighed as she pulled at my moustache probably to discover if it had turned fake yet.

"I know darlin', I've been away."

She nodded, her gaze lowered as a sadness crossed her features, "Daddy said."

There was something about the way she said Daddy that caused my heart to tighten.

But quickly she beamed like I'd imagined the sorrow and said "you're back now!"

"Yeah," I aimed for pacification; the arch of her brow told me it didn't work.

"Leah, I don't have time for this today, right you're gonna be proper late for school!"

That was my first sense of him. We were hidden behind the sweet stand in price slice, so his voice came first. A comment directed at his daughter, the girl he could have lost so easily so many times because of me, the one who was still physically attached to me. I thought the best thing might be to turn on my heel and run - he hadn't seen me yet. But as he walked closer I could smell him, that memory-inducing scent - cologne, cheap lemon body wash, and the forever lingering smell of garlic, and my heart was in my mouth.

"And remember I said if you go to school on time this week I'll take you to see that puppy."

There was that weird feeling in the back of my eyes, and for a second I wasn't even sure where my legs were, let alone if I could move them quickly enough to leave unnoticed.

I saw his shape move from behind the stand and I heard myself count the seconds until he saw me again. Somehow without really thinking about it, I realised I'd pulled Leah closer.

"You wanna see the-"

I watched his lips part; his eyes widen and his skin turn whiter than that hideous knitted jumper he insisted on wearing on Christmas Day. I watched him basically become asphyxiated just at the sight of me and decided the only right thing to do would be put down his daughter. But even when she did she stayed attached to me, pulling at my suit jacket, reminding me that she hadn't actually given her permission for the hug to end.

"Hi," I said eventually, when I realised that Frankie was looking like she'd got her drama viewing for the afternoon sorted, and that was beside the look that Leah was giving us.

"Brendan," he responded, although it was more like a squeak than my actual name.

My mouth opened wordless with all the things I couldn't possibly say right then, all the explanations that could only fail.

"Cheryl told us you were back," he said having found his vocal chords.

That's how one of those conversations started, when our words paid no resemblance to what we were actually saying

What he meant was_, it's not that I didn't know you were OK, I just forgot you had anything to do with my life._

"Yeah, I think three days now." I_t's felt like forever walking around Chester without you._

"Wasn't sure you were gonna bother." _Yeah seriously – who are you?_

"Well, peop-, Cheryl" I corrected myself just in time, "needs me." _I hoped you needed me._

His lips curled into a smile that was more like a snarl, _people needed you before._

"Come on Leah, school."

Neither of us had noticed that her little chubby hand had found it's way into mine. When I looked down she beamed up at me with a look I've seen Mitzeee get sometimes when she's talking to a rag. "Daddy Brendan's gonna walk with us, aren't you?"

"Am I?"

She nodded and started walking without letting go of my hand - quite the little conspirator.

"What have I said about calling him that, Leah?" I heard Ste say for Frankie's effect as we left the shop.

"Don't care," she said resolutely, "anyway Daddy Doug's still called Daddy."

"That's different."

"Why?"

"It just is."

**8.45 am, ****25/3/2013. ****Hollyoaks Primary**

He sniffed and scuffed the toe of his trainers against the kerb as he waited to make sure Leah got into class. I didn't know if I should still be there. There had been a weird tension in the air as soon as Leah left, like somebody had wrapped an invisible rubber band around us and it kept snapping back at his efforts to get away. But I didn't want to go and there was a part of me that wanted to pull that rubber band tighter, that wanted to fight for us. So I took my time to look at him.

To the casual observer he looked exactly the same as he did when I left. But then I was never exactly a casual observer when it came to Steven Hay. And there was something different, mislaid, about him. As soon as those infuriatingly long eyelashes blinked at me I knew what it was. Steven has always had eyes that painted a thousand emotions. People make comparisons between eyes and windows to the soul, don't they? And usually it's a pile of crap, but not with Steven. If you took the time to know him you could see every emotion in those eyes, I had seen every one directed at me, companionship, warmth, pride, love, hunger, excitement, desperation, satiation, confusion, and fear and shame and hatred. But now there was nothing, absolutely nothing, like someone had pressed pause and forgotten to return to him.

I almost choked when I realised that it had been me.

"Sorry about that," he says eventually, "she's a bit full on right now."

"No, it was nice." I say quickly and he shook his head. There was a look in his eyes like I had just offered him a gun and our own version of Dunblaine.

"Well you didn't have to walk us, and you definitely don't have to come for dinner, can't believe she invited you – like I'm going to bloody what was it she said? Make a cake as a welcome back."

Suddenly my vision was filled with the last time he engaged in that activity, well tried to, until I decided it smelled just too good and the only place I wanted the batter was over him. He caught my gaze and that tiny laugh that barely left his lips filled every space between us, the rubber band loosened.

"Some things don't change."

"I hope not," I responded, too lost in the memories to remember why I didn't flirt with him anymore, all he did was raise an eyebrow.

"Need milk for the sponge she wants anyway, national shortage or something isn't there? Where did you have to go to get it in the end?" He demanded a different memory.

My feet paused as I was filled with the need to say sorry, so when the word had formed on my tongue he was half way up the road and I had to run to catch up with him.

When I did he smiled at me, civilly, but clearly telling me he didn't want an apology, he wanted a different conversation.

"So you gonna finally get her a dog?" I asked, I didn't feel I had any right to know, I just felt like it was the family debate I was there for.

He nodded, his hands sinking further down into his pockets. I was struck by how much he looked like the kid he had been - the barman I used to fuck, not the man who had found honesty in the kisses of others, the man who had made his business a success despite secrets, bribery and divorce.

"We just thought she needed a bit more stability, people keep leaving her you see, dogs tend to be a bit more loyal, or at least they come back for food."

The apology sat on my tongue but for some reason I didn't think I could give it.

**5.00 pm, ****25/3/2013. ****The Hay's.**

I said I didn't have to go to dinner; he looked at me with threats in his eyes and reminded me that I'd promised Leah I would. Besides, the half an hour I spent with him reminded me why I wanted to fight for him, for the family I once thought I could be a part of. So I spent most of the day choosing my outfit, I was worse than Cheryl, changing six times before I settled. I even went to town to get the aftershave I know he'd remember.

Every little part of me was designed with him in mind. I was wearing jeans with a dress shirt, not because I don't know how to dress but because he once said he thought it looked sexy, in that pink-cheeked eyelash-hidden kind of way. The shirt I chose was my arc d' triumph, I found it shoved in the back of my cupboard, and the moment I saw it all I could do was look at it as though the memories were painted on it. It was the white one with the pink in the collar. I didn't even entertain the thought that he wouldn't remember it in the way I did, the day I opened my heart for the first time.

I turned up on the exact hour he asked, carrying wine and chocolate milk for the kids. As he opened the door a tea-towel almost fell from his hands and he looked shocked again. But it wasn't the same shock as earlier, it didn't make me want to call an ambulance, it made me want to pull him outside, pin him up against the brick wall and show him exactly how I missed him until he begged with that breathy word "bedroom".

"Daddy Brendan!" Leah was between us in a matter of seconds, sticking her arms up for a hug.

"Daddy Brendan, Daddy Brendan, Daddy Brendan!" Lucas chorused from the sitting room.

Steven didn't correct them that time. And although his eyes were on the floor as I carried Leah indoors, there was this smile on his lips that made the world seem right. And when I walked into the kitchen offering him wine I noted the crockery on the table and felt a smile tilt into my moustache.

"_It's the proper good stuff!" he had insisted once, complaining that I'd put it out. _

_And he had laughed as I mocked him for being a good little housewife, until he explained where it came from – a wedding present from Tony Hutchinson. A present for him and Douglas._

I studied it's presence there for a few minutes, it could have meant two things, either that he was telling me to back off, that I was welcome as a part of his kids' lives but nothing more, a quiet reminder that I never meant anything as much as a husband to him in the first place. Or, the other thing, that he had dressed the table in the same way as I had dressed myself. It was hard to tell what memories he wanted to evoke, seeing as the marriage lasted all of three weeks it was possible that they were only ever used for the date we had. The date that ended in their clanging chorus, as Steven lay spread-eagled on the table and I screwed him hard enough to fuck Douglas out of forever - he never belonged there in the first place.

"Fancy some?" Steven asked me then, standing close behind me as he passed me a glass of wine.

I felt myself smirk at his words. He blushed a little and looked down, studying the back of my shirt like there was something on it, or like he just couldn't look away from me.

I hummed in approval as I took the glass, refusing to take my eyes away from him when he was so open for my contemplation. When he met my gaze again I knew exactly the reason the plates were there and I felt the fire in his eyes like it was burning through my veins.

A moment seemed to last forever as I stood in his gaze. We weren't touching but I could feel his breath on my neck and smell only him and I could sense him in every part of me. A warmth spread inside me like I was safe finally, like I could stop hiding and running and fighting finally, like I could just BE. I dedicated every sense to him, absorbing him through every pore – he has always been my remedy.

He moved eventually, disturbed by a noise from the kids. He took a sip of wine, and a couple of steps back and the moment ended.

"So, how are you?" He asked, tossing the onions in the pan like I was just a regular visitor, someone who would occasionally pop up in his life from time to time, not someone who was supposed to spend every day in it and then just disappeared.

And I knew then that I had to tell him. I had to tell him why I'd gone away and why I couldn't have stayed. He had to know about Kevin; about the gun; about the time I lost Leah for three hours and she told me some smelly man with a beard had taken her for ice-cream and asked her loads of odd questions about Daddy. He had to know that I would have avoided all this, that I still wouldn't have gone, if it wasn't for the afternoon I left,

"_Had a visitor?" He had asked nonchalantly as I walked through the front door of home that day, "Never seen that before, proper odd that." He said, pointing at a jacket hanging casually on a chair - the evidence that my worst nightmares had come true. _

He had to know. He had to believe that if there was any way of remaining as us, of keeping him safe and keeping this family safe whilst being us I never would have even thought about leaving.

I walked so my back was against the sink and I could look at him.

"Steven-" I started.

But the look he gave me paused the words inside me like anything I could say would be futile.

"Will you come and play Peter Pan with us?" A voice sung from the doorway.

And I turned to smile at Leah and her brother grinning at me with angelic faces.

"Go on," Steven urged, his eyes finally diverted, "I'll be another half an hour here at least, you have plenty of time." And he laced the end of that sentence like it was a double entendre.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N:**

Thank you as always for the lovely words, this is for all you lovely reviewers who make my plot bunnies go crazy.

This gets a lot angstier now…

**Chapter Two**

**5.45 pm The Hay's kitchen.**

Normal. It's always been a weird word in my vocabulary. Even my wedding day, my beautiful bride surprising me by inviting my whole family and every member had looked so happy for us, including my father. Even the birth of my first born, I held him as he smiled at me and I knew I would never love in the same way again; and as I breathed in I could smell the new barman and his sex. Even the day I walked home beside the man I loved and I could feel the judgemental eyes of all our neighbours whispering the one thought I'd locked away, "that stupid boy."

Normal and I never quite fitted.

But this afternoon I chased after two giggling children as they pretended they were Tinkerbell and Pan and I was Hook. And the love of my life sang along to cheesy songs on the radio station as he cooked. And that was normal. This afternoon I felt normal. I felt like I could be that man, like as that man I could survive forever.

Even as I caught Amy berating Steven for using those plates, I didn't feel like I needed to fight back or run or bribe. And as he half smiled after accidentally meeting my gaze I felt like I was supposed to be there. I felt like I belonged, it's hard to describe what that's like if you weren't bought up with the ingrained belief that you would never belong anywhere.

The children giggled as I carried them, one under each arm, to the dinner table. And Steven nudged Amy like he was impressed when I put carrots on Leah's plate to no complaint.

The food was gorgeous, roast dinner with all the trimmings, and Steven's special homemade gravy.

Leah looked at me and laughed, "your favourite."

And for a second Steven didn't catch my eye, as though he knew, and he'd done it for me.

But it's funny how all of that can be smashed by eight words isn't it? Normality, belonging and pride gone in a second.

"So a month, where did you go exactly?" It was Amy.

It was the first thing that was spoken about my disappearance since Ste's joke about milk in the morning. It bought us face to face with the memory that this wasn't quite as normal as it could have been.

Steven pursed his lips and dropped his fork with a clash.

Leah and Lucas looked at each other like Daddy was being weird.

"Was it lovely?" Amy's sarcasm wiped the entire kitchen.

I almost apologised or offered to leave, wondering what the best thing was - wondering how to stop Steven from looking like he was being punched to death.

But Steven's voice, given in warning, muted mine, "Amy."

I stared at him, surely he knew that the least he deserved was the apology Amy was fighting for?

"Well I assume it was lovely, that's why you were too busy to call."

"Amy!" Steven's tone was harsh as once again he blocked my apology.

They stared at each other, dirty, nasty looks. Leah looked from her parents to me like someone had dropped an F bomb. All I could do was look at Steven and apologise from the bottom of my heart although I knew he would never hear it however loud it was said.

Everything was completely silent. Even the news team on their tiny television were having some problem with a live broadcast. So there was only static and the sound of Lucas' feet banging against the chair leg to some unknown rhythm.

And then suddenly the room filled with a news story. A body's been found in an old warehouse in Southport; an ex detective; a Mr Simon Walker.

Steven caught my eye for a second, before dropping contact like I was a stranger. He reached to change the channel, just as the news team were reminding viewers that the man, now dead, was chief suspect in the murder of professional footballer Riley Costello.

"I know that man!" Leah said, like a five year old would – like a man she knew being on the telly is a badge of honour.

"No I don't think you do sweetheart," Amy responded.

"Yeah – he's icecream man!"

My heart sunk as I realised they knew.

"Leah that man's in Southport see – Southport's a little while away," Amy told the white lies of parental protection.

"But Mummy-"

I tuned out of reality as the news continued in my head. They would have reported that this bloke had been dead for four days before he was found. They would have reported that he was found with another man, a Kevin Foster. They would have reported that there was no sign of struggle and the deaths were being recorded as suicide. They would have reported that Kevin's family were in mourning, but Walker, having no family to speak of, had had a state funded burial that very afternoon.

I knew that because it wasn't new news. It broke late last night and was plastered over a couple of the local newspapers by morning. I knew that because I've been glued to all the local and national publications since I've been back, since before I came back. I knew that people knew, and I knew how much they knew. Most importantly I knew that there was no way they could ever find out it was me.

What was new was the presence of this story there, at that dinner table, with that family that I almost built myself a part of, the innocent family I almost died trying to protect – that was new.

I didn't want it.

My eyes kept traveling between the table and Steven's eyes focused on his plate. I could feel myself reverting back into those memories and all I needed was his gaze to pull me back. In that moment he was, as he always has been, my only life line.

But he wouldn't look at me.

And I couldn't block those memories.

I tried to focus on the aroma of the roast dinner.

But I couldn't misplace the smells of sweat and urine and blood, so much blood.

I aimed for a drink of water but I could barely swallow.

My mouth filled with the taste of metal as he held that gun in my mouth, of vomit as I washed up after.

And it all came back.

I felt it all like it was happening over again - there was the fear that I wouldn't ever see them again; the terror that this time he would win; the shame that Amy had been right, that I could make them lose their kids, or worse take a whole family away from her. The knowledge that I could be responsible for leaving a massive great Steven Hay shaped whole in the world, just because he was a fool to fall for me and I was selfish enough to want him back. That's what scared me the most, the loss of Steven replayed in my head every minute of every day like the worst notes to an over-played pop song. He was what kept me going day after day, night after night. The fact that if I didn't, I would have to learn how to live without him was almost impossible to contemplate. I've been around enough death to know that the world would move on, but there would be no point anymore, without the promise of belonging.

Sitting at that dinner table as the news report echoed, my mind filled with then, with Walker and Kevin, with the potential loss of a life that means more than my own. And everything that happened before, Declan comatosed, Steven shuddering, Cheryl crying, the explosion, Joel's Dad…

"Brendan." It was Steven's voice.

I looked up from my hands and I realised my body looked like it had been praying.

"Brendan, I need to go to priceslice right, get some pudding, wanna help?"

**6.10 pm The Hay's hallway.**

"OK?" He asked when we were safely away from prying eyes.

I nodded and he stepped toward me, bringing all of him close to me and I panicked. If he did it, if he comforted me, I knew I wouldn't be able to take it. I would break into him in that hallway and the whole night would become about what I could get from him and not what he deserves from me.

"I'm fine," I said, although there wasn't a second he believed me.

"Lets go, it's late," I said. "You'll be wanting to get the kids to bed soon."

I tried to step away from him but he just walked closer, and that time I could smell his breath against my lips. I knew he would be the only thing that could take me back to normality.

He reached toward me, his hand coming up toward my face and my breath shuddered from me.

"Steven-"

"It's cool," his voice was calm, and there was humour in his eyes, "you just might wanna take this off first right, look proper odd don't you think?" His finger traced gently around my cheek and the eye patch.

The eye patch from the kid's dressing up box.

The eye patch they made me wear as Hook.

The eye patch that Leah had insisted I kept on. The one I had completely forgotten everything about.

Steven's touch bought a new memory – that it hasn't all been about death and murder and badness and betrayal. That there is still innocence protected.

**6.30 pm Priceslice**

"Chocolate cake or strawberry ice cream?" Were the next words to be permitted between us, his voice mulling over tonight's possibilities.

"Both."

He beamed at me over his shoulder, and I stepped closer, I just needed to be with him.

"Not together!" He protested.

"Why not? Chocolate and strawberries, nothing tastes better." My voice was breathy, I was aware I was flirting, but I didn't want to stop. I was also aware he wasn't stopping me, or cowering, in fact his body seemed to be leaning back, into mine.

"Cos it's proper greedy! No wonder you're getting that podge!" He laughed.

As he playfully dug me in the stomach I gulped.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I forced a smile.

He stood back, his face blanching.

His eyes looked over me like he could see through the fabric to the skin underneath.

Time dragged its' heels.

"Are you hurt?"

I figured that the joke 'you should see the other guy' would go down like a lead balloon, or a man shot in the aorta, so I stayed quiet.

"Brendan," he sighed, his hand mapping over his face, "right, all I wanna do is help."

"You're helping more than you know." He looked as surprised as I was that those words had come out loud. "More than I deserve."

His eyes darkened briefly, dropped to the floor and then worked slowly up me, knowing and assessing. His roaming gaze paused at my mouth, and then flashed to my eyes and back.

"That's your problem, innit?" He asked quietly, stepping close, his gaze still on my lips like a lingering kiss. "You never know what you deserve."

He smiled at me like he was offering the thing I deserve least in this world. The thing I want more than I ever remember wanting anything. The thing that's been my only motivation for months, no, years.

Us.

And fuck I wanted to take it.

I would have scooped him up and kissed him like my world was ending, marched him up those stairs to my place and taken him in every single room, forgetting everyone else. I would have, if I had thought for a moment it would make him happy. But Amy was right, and Frankie was right and fucking Walker was right – this was only ever over. I thought that was why Steven wouldn't let me apologise or explain, because he knew I'd lost.

I shook my head, just once, and he reached for my touch again, but Frankie's cough broke up the moment - reminding us she was trying to close.

"Chocolate cake and strawberry icecream," I said forcing insouciance as I walked away from him, "and I'm paying."

"Brendan-"

"Call it me paying you back," I rested my hand on his shoulder, "for the Deli tab."

He smiled and nodded, although we were both thinking of how much more I owed him, and that I would never be able to pay my dues.

There was a weird atmosphere when we left the shop, like the frivolity had disappeared, sucked into the place where we started the day in shock and miscommunication. He was slumped into his jacket again, his hands deep in his pockets.

"I'll go, if you like?" I offered.

"Why would you think I want that?" He retorted bitterly, shaking his head. "Whatever. Go home if it proper means that much to you."

But a funny thing happened to me as I watched him march away, I realised I've only ever had one home, and that I was letting it close its doors on me. And I realised that if you have a place in this world where you belong, even if it's a place where you keep screwing up, you're supposed to stay, keep fighting however long it takes, because your shape's carved there and will be for an eternity.

I ran up to him, and fell into his tread, following him home. He noted my presence with a sideways tilt of his head, though his eyes never met mine.

"Chocolate and strawberries - that means something to me." I told him.

_Chocolate and strawberries, and roast dinners, and plates from a wedding I failed to stop, and little girl's smiles, and big hugs, and playing Peter Pan, and bedtime stories, and warm bodies and deep kisses and endless low sighs mean something to me._

"_Home" means something to me_.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N:**

I really don't know about this, I felt a little like I'd lost my way (you can tell cos the end gets sickeningly poetic) so I condensed two chapters into one and I think it shows. But hopefully y'all still think it makes sense.

Loads and loads of thanks to PatriciaJessic for the plot pointers.

Also I wasn't gonna spend a lot of time talking about what happened to Brendan in the warehouse, focusing on what Brendan feels now he's come back to Ste. But I can refer to it in a lot more depth in the next chapter so let me know if this is something that you'd like.

Thank you for the reviews and the follows so far, I really appreciate hearing that you like my words :)

**Warning:**

This gets a little M at the end, but still probably not what you're used to from me!

**Chapter Three**

**7.30 pm, ****25/3/2013.** the Hay's kitchen

"Please let Daddy Brendan read, Mummy," Leah said. "We miss his Three little pigs don't we Lucas?"

She stood, bundled up and ready for bed, with her teddy clutched in her hand. I caught a smile on Steven's face that warmed through me. Amy shot me a look like she would have been happier if Leah had referred to "Daddy Hitler".

"Three little pigs?" Amy said, her tone immediately chilling. Her irony was obvious. "And the Big Bad Wolf?"

"He was dead good at that wasn't he kids?" Steven said and the kid's cheers seemed to match something happening inside me.

"Experienced I bet," I caught Amy's whispered hush.

"But it's quite late guys right, Brendan's a bit tired, who want's Daddy's Cinderella?" I felt the loss of his support like it was the only thing holding me up.

But as the kids turned to me with disheartened faces, I saw the look on his face like he'd failed himself. He turned away from the crowd, for a second busying himself with pouring water for his children. All I wanted to do was pull him to me and promise him it was OK to give up on us.

"I'm sorry guys," I whispered, accepting their proffered hugs with both arms.

"Maybe if you ask really nicely D-…Brendan might read to you some other time," and despite the fact she had swallowed the title they'd given me, Amy's words felt like she'd shown me the way home. "Go with Daddy now."

As the kids left, with a kiss for both of us, I turned to smile at Amy with gratitude, but she just turned away, blanking me.

"I don't like lying to my little girl Brendan, any more than I like seeing Ste looking like he's been kicked in the gut every morning." She said bitterly, and then she turned to me like she was trying to order her face into a smile. "They asked for that story every night, Wolf was Irish and pigs were English or something weren't it?"

"I tried…"

"Just make sure you know what you're trying for."

**7.45pm, ****25/3/2013.**** the Hay's Hallway**

Amy's words rang into the silence of those fifteen minutes.

So as she returned from their bedroom saying, "they wanna say goodnight to you."

I heard it with the intention she meant – know whether you're saying goodnight or goodbye.

The hallway filled with Steven's uninhibited donkey laugh from their bedroom. And it sounded like my answer. My proof he'd be happy like this, happiest without me. My choice was made for me - leaving was the only thing I could do.

As I met him in the hallway he leaned close and I took a moment to sense him and the smile he wore for me, knowing it would be my last.

"What are you doing tonight?" He asked, promises written in his gaze, and I knew it was my test.

My mind rushed, trying to think of one thing I could name - I hadn't thought about the outside world for two hours.

"It's just you could stay if you like?"

Silence shifted its heavy weight between us, I wished I was stronger.

"I mean for a movie," he swallowed hard. "We're gonna watch The Break Up, Amy's choice," I tried not to smile at her obvious choice of irony. "It's a bit crap but it's got that bloke in and you're welcome to join us."

"Thanks, your articulate description sounds so tempting, Steven," I joked and I craved to loose myself in the laugh I pulled, taste that smile my words had spread, but those were the treats of before. "But I better go. I've had a really nice evening, thank you," I said not wanting to leave him with one doubt of my feelings for him.

"No, thank you," Steven responded quickly, "for coming and the wine and the pudding and the chocolate milk, and the… just… y'know."

I nodded slowly, I thought he was saying thank you for having the strength to let me go.

**8.00pm, ****25/3/2013.**** Leah and Lucas' bedroom.**

Leah held onto my neck like she was never going to let go. I felt that hot sensation in the back of my eyes again.

"Can I tell you a secret?" She whispered. "Me and Lucas love you, but I think Daddy loves you more."

"And I love the three of you," I smiled; thankful I could make my goodbye to somebody. "Never forget that, princess."

"I won't" she promised.

"And hug your Daddy from time to time."

It was selfish request I know but I just needed to know he'd get past this.

"Sleep tight, guys."

They were both fast asleep by the time I reached the door. So I watched them for a little before turning off the light, and as I did I got this feeling that perhaps this month had been worth it. The goodbye had been worth it - if it meant those kids could still be like that. Brother and sister asleep without nightmares, knowing Mummy and Daddy were in the next rooms ready and able to protect them from every monster they would ever come across. Safe in the knowledge that the worst thing that could possibly happen is falling off their bikes and banging their knees or Daddy burning pizza. These are the people that we should protect, show me the ends of hell, haunt me, bruise me and break me, but keep them safe.

**8.15pm, ****25/3/2013.**** The Hay's hallway.**

Steven and Amy were curled up into each other as I left the kids' room. I stood unnoticed as they drank tea and watched the film. You wouldn't have thought, seeing them like that, that they could have had that argument at the kitchen table. It looked like Steven's ankles always belonged under Amy's right thigh, and that her head had its place in his left elbow. This was Steven's home. I was only ever his guest but he'd given me so much in the ten weeks he'd let me stay and I would be eternally grateful.

So I made a silence promise to never abandon them. No matter how much it would hurt to see it all from afar and to watch Steven finding happiness with another. No matter what it took I would always be this family's protector.

I coughed to alert them of my presence and Amy barely moved. But Steven lifted his head, his eyes glittering over me in the darkness.

"Vince Vaughn," he said quickly, "the dude in the movie, you like him don't you?"

"He can be funny," I say trying not to let Steven's memory push me from goodbye. "Enjoy it. G'night guys."

Steven's hand was on the door as I tried to open it. I'd heard some hushed whispers from the sitting room but I hadn't heard him move. I turned toward him, my jaw locking.

"Have you worked out where you're going yet? It's just there's, erm," and his gaze hid behind his eyelashes, "something important you could be doing here if you don't really have anywhere to go."

He leaned closer to me, just in case there was any way I had misunderstood his meaning. And his teeth trapped his bottom lip, but I knew that was impulsive. A sign he was nervous his seduction could ever be powerless. I could have melted into his heat, it felt like I had been numb, frozen for too long and it was only under him that I could thaw.

"Steven-" I said, my one last protest.

"Brendan," he answered me quickly.

His smile grew in time with mine.

"Bedroom," he said.

**8.30 pm, ****25/3/2013. ****Ste's bedroom**

As soon as we were alone again properly I sensed it - that feeling that there was too much left unsaid, a tsunami of unspoken words ready to engulf us and no possible way to say them. I knew it was my last chance to speak.

"Steven-"

"Don't." He stopped me immediately, closing the door behind him. "Right, don't say you're sorry when I know you're not, don't try and explain it when it's proper not explainable. And definitely don't tell me what happened like I'm thick and I don't know." He watches the surprise in my eyes and adds, "I've known since I saw you this morning, Right I've known since I saw it on the news last night."

My fingers twisted a complicated pattern by my side.

"So why am I here then?" I asked. "Why did you ask me to stay?"

He grinned at me, this smile I'd never seen before, it seemed to say so many things and yet none at all. I wondered if it tasted as bitter as it looked.

"To fuck me," he said slowly like I'm a fool and I was never fluent in him. "Why else do you think I tell men to go to my bedroom?"

His words stung in the back of my throat – I felt like I wanted to ask how many men he was talking about but didn't want to hear the answer.

I looked at him and for that moment I didn't recognise him. It's not that he was confident, or being dominant – I had liked the power play that had been forming between us before. It wasn't that I was jealous of the "men" he spoke of. It was because I didn't know the way he was looking at me. I felt like it wasn't me who belonged here, that I had merely imagined I ever did. I couldn't let him do it, I couldn't let him take the only home I ever had away from me.

"What's the matter? Not up to it these days? You look proper shit, maybe that's what this is really about – not me at all, but-"

I was with him in a second, silencing his words. His body curved between me and the door as I trapped him. I grabbed his hands and he let me take his breath as I pulled his arms slowly up the door, above his head. I could feel his heart thrashing against my own – that I remembered.

My entire body was impulse.

I couldn't leave without knowing we would always matter. I leant closer. My eyes closed as I breathed him in - all the things that were him wrapped up in the smell of warm skin. With just one breath so many memories played in front of my eyes, I could hear every pleasured scream, see every excited smile, feel every satiated touch he had ever given me. I basked in those memories, collected them within this final goodbye.

I pulled back to watch him trapped in lust. His lips parted for a breath, damp and pink and warm and delectable. His eyelashes fluttered. Steven in that moment was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen and I couldn't resist. I couldn't let him think for a second that I'd lost the power to possess, my heart couldn't allow it. I crashed my mouth against his. The kiss was hard and brutal and unrelenting. The kiss was life - I was in control.

I've kissed him like that enough times to know what his responses would be. I knew he would be whimpering in a second, and it would take a single moment for him to be as hard as a rock. I knew he would let my mouth lead his, submit to the presence of my tongue, accept the pull of my teeth, worship the burn of my moustache. I knew that his hands would flex in my own, as his whole body accepted my presence.

But the kiss was still unexpected. There was a strength in his tongue, that I wasn't expecting, a tightness in his grip. His hips worked a display of desire under mine and I knew I didn't have his mind as completely as I owned it before.

I pulled back. Something in his gaze said he felt triumphant, like he'd got exactly what he wanted. And I realised his words had been designed to pull me towards him, forget everything except my need to claim him.

He let a little laugh slip between his lips, but I could still taste the double bluff.

Still I couldn't resist one last kiss. His body curved closer to mine and I felt the scabs threaten to reopen – the pain a reminder that I couldn't keep doing this.

"_Just know what you're trying for." _

"No more," I pulled away just before I felt my mind slide.

I didn't get far, as I never do, my forehead found it's rest against his.

One look told me he felt dejected.

"This isn't about you," I assured him quickly. "I've wanted to fuck you since I saw you this morning, since before I saw you this morning." I allowed my head to dip near his neck, breathing in his scent one more time. "It's not about me, you know I'm more than capable." I promised, pressing up into him so he could feel every curve of me. "But you know this is wrong don't you?"

He rolled his eyes like he was already bored of my words. But I had to let him know that I wasn't worth this, that I didn't expect him to keep waiting for me. There were places in me that he shouldn't ever go.

"Me and you, Steven we-"

His kiss took my words into heat and desperation. He broke free of my hold against his wrists and cupped my face with his hands, pulling me closer. He burst lust throughout me, claiming my sense, my resistance, ridding me of everything that said no.

I wasn't anything but sensation and all I could think was finally, yes!

"All I want you to do is fuck me," he barely pulled away from the kiss to say it, so the bitterness in his words stained the air.

His touch mapped over me like he was reading the language of me. His fingertips explored my chin, my neck, my tache and I remembered how avidly he would respond to the feeling of my stubble against him, the burning rush his aphrodisiac. I could do it couldn't I? Fuck him and leave, orders were never more straightforward.

My hands cupped his shoulders as I pushed him back against the door, ending the kiss, but his smile told me he knew I wasn't finishing this.

Slowly, I gazed down at his body trembling for mine. I let my eyes dip up for the fire in his as I pulled down the zip on his hoody. Even the sound of the slow release was familiar.

I knelt in front of him, sliding the white cotton of his tee up his skin. His muscles were stretched taut, pulled by lust. I let my eyes worship him, mapping the path I knew so well. I pressed my chin against his chest, sliding my stubble down to his navel, dipping my tongue in, guided by the music of his mouth. He moved quickly, ridding himself of the t-shirt and hoody.

My eyes drank him in, finally exposed for me. He made to pull down his trackies but I pulled away. He wasn't quite there yet.

His face was lost in lust - his chin tilted up as his head rested against the door; his teeth chewing impulsively at his bottom lip; his eyelashes barely opening for the fire inside; his forehead, his cheeks his chin all tensed with desire. And God he looked fucking amazing, but not good enough yet. He wasn't mine yet.

Every time I had taken him his eyes were deep open pools ready for my surrender. He had always watched every movement like he couldn't look away. From that first time in the cellar to the last endless countless nights, he would show me every emotion unashamed. But the man above me in that moment, the one who was surrendering to lust, wasn't my Steven. It was Ste, the confident lover that other men got to see. I had to call my boy back to me.

If this was goodbye I had to remind him that I knew him inside out. I had to leave him with the certitude that there would never be a single place left to shelter, because we knew each other's hiding spaces. I had to remind him that wherever we went, whatever we did, we would always be the wreckage of our storm.

So I teased him for hours against that door, bathed in the music from his lips. I explored every inch of him, sensed him into every cavern and consumed him into the loneliness within me.

He made me feel so powerful. I could make every lick a sigh, every bite a moan and he submitted to me like he knew he would be safe as he shattered.

Slowly those beautiful eyes opened for me, turning to the colour of midnight under my ministrations.

"Ah Brendan!" It was the first time he'd said my name since I'd been in his bedroom and my thumb paused against the unexplored territory of the crack of his arse, my tongue against his ball.

I pulled back and saw him, my boy, all eyelash laden wide eyes, hot pink cheeks and parted trembling lips, he'd come back to me.

"Steven," I whispered.

At the presence of his name from my lips I felt a world open up. The place where I belonged opening it's doors for me. Home. Every cell in my body shook – it was too much. I was knocked over by the strength of it. But I couldn't let him know I wasn't strong so I did the one thing I could – used my body to claim what he offered me. Using every skill I had to consume each part of him within me and never let him go.

He came undone like he was powerless.

I stood up and pulled him into my arms and I could feel the heat of him and the pulse of his blood, and I knew then that I'd done it. I'd kept him safe. The world without him had vanished, and he was there, right in front of me. I kept his naked, trembling, body into mine, feeling the vitality of him. I could feel the beat of his heart and the rush of his breath, and I licked at the sweat that had formed by his neck. I had to remember him like that - so alive.

And all I kept thinking was 'it's time to leave now'.

"Fuck! That was-" he left the sentence incomplete.

"I came so fucking hard!" He laughed, his cheeks heated, "and you're still in your fucking clothes!"

"Is that really that much of a surprise to you, Steven?"

I remembered all those times I left him on the office table a quivering wreck, as I walked back into the buzzy club not a button out of place. He bit his lip at the same memories, blushing profusely.

His fingers took the ends of my white shirt as he pulled it out of my jeans.

"God the memories with this bloody shirt – right?"

And then his hands shook and he started undoing my buttons like he was scared.

"Jesus," he said alarmed, and in the sound of his voice I remembered – he wasn't ever supposed to see me unhealed. "Fuck Brendan!"

I wasn't supposed to be there. I started to pull myself back together again but he was stronger. He stood up ripped my shirt off and left me open for his gaze, my scarred, battered body at his mercy.

"Jesus Christ," he looked so sad.

I cupped my hand around his cheek, trying to add some comfort. He wouldn't take his eyes off the tracks of past hatred.

"It's OK, Steven. I'm OK."

He placed his touch against my hand and bought my palm down for his kiss. Time beat quickly, and silence pounded at us.

"You know I was joking right?" He asked, aiming at frivolity as his damaged eyes met mine. "You don't look like shit."

I stepped closer to him, my eyes darkening with fire wanting to leave him with the knowledge of our storm, not guilt or pity for my breakage.

"I think I can tell you think that, yeah."

He beamed at me, but then his finger traced along a permanent scar that was starting to form, the big one running from the bottom of my collar bone to my heart.

"Why didn't you tell me you were hurt so bad? I mean," his finger traced under my eye, the bruise the end of the gun had left. "But…!" His gaze traced back over my torso, the majority of the damage now exposed.

I left his question unanswered.

"How far do they go down?" He asked, as he ran his index finger along the mutilation that leads just under my stomach.

"It doesn't matter."

He looked at me slowly, carefully and picked up my hand. He stroked his thumb over the lines the rope had made. And then his tongue pressed against my wrist, slowly, sensually, so I could feel myself heal.

"Lie down on the bed," he whispered, leading us closer.

At first I resisted, I didn't want his sympathy or his cure when I was the cause of all the damage. He would be the only thing that could help but I would only ever be his destroyer.

"Please, Brendan," he breathed and there was a look in his eye like he needed this, like without our touch he would be lost.

I lay down, comforted into the bed that once knew my presence. His tongue worshipped every inch of my broken body, his lips sealing the cuts, his mouth trailing softly across the bruises – kissing each part of me better.

He looked up at me, his tongue paused on my navel, and gave me this look that he knew would be my undoing. Like he was stronger with me.

"How far do they go down?" He asked again.

With a relenting nod I shucked out of my trousers, searching those eyes for a time I should stop. But he kept watching and I remembered how resilient he is, that he's seen evil before and yet he remained as he was. His innocence was formed in hell.

A kiss was pressed to the bruise on my ankle and I felt a tear drop.

"Steven."

"I'm OK," he sniffed. "I just, I guess I didn't let meself think how close I could of got to losing you."

I had to show him I would never leave him. That it wouldn't matter what distance was placed between us, what power took me away from him, it was with him that I would always remain. He would never lose me because he had a part of me that no-one else ever would – he had my home. I turned him around and held him beneath me. I kissed him like my soul was in his mouth. I kept him in that kiss as I entered him and lost him to the eternity of us.

Afterward, as he pulled into me satiated and exhausted, I foolishly let myself stay. And I let the pattern of his slow steady breath pull me into dreams. His strength was our shelter.


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N:**

Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews for the last part, particularly to my two wonderful guests who left such amazing reviews I had to reread them but couldn't thank them in a PM.

I'm sorry I promise I'll stop uploading so much soon. I really wish this would stop writing itself too – I have other things to do!

This is a bit flashbacky, I hope not too much so. I really wasn't going to get into this much depth but I got a little carried away! I'm also really shit at action so I apologise for that. I hope you like it all the same – let me know :D

**Warnings:**

This chapter is M for themes of sex and violence but there's not a lot of graphic stuff.

Love you all.

**Chapter Four**

**10.30 pm, ****25/3/2013. ****Ste's bedroom**

The comfort of our bed, the rhythm of Steven's breath and the warmth of his skin all lulled me into a sense of security – I could sleep, finally, after four weeks without.

So I fell into reverie like a man deprived.

The trouble is, in dreams, memories can always get you.

**11.45 pm, 16/03/2012. Car park, Southport**

The wind bit the night like it was capable of driving through concrete. The gun stayed gripped in my hand. I lodged myself between the car and the brick wall. My every sense was on high alert, but there was a deep lethargy in my muscles, like a druggy strung out. It was like I was seeing in over exposure, the orange of the streetlight, the yellow of the car, the red of the concrete, the grey of the pavement, all distinctly clear.

Then everything went black.

I felt my breath exit swiftly into that toted mesh – I was so fucking tired of running.

**11.30 am, 12/02/2013. Chester**

The pavement was spinning beneath my feet, my heart thudding, lungs burning.

"Leah!"

I kept seeing her dead lifeless form like a ghost.

She always trailed behind me as we walked into school, always. And usually I made sure I listened to her little feet clipping the pavement as she sulked. But that day wasn't a usual day. I'd slept on the sofa and woken up without Steven's blissful tuneless singing; or a cup of lovingly-made disgustingly-cold coffee. I hadn't seen him all morning.

He had been angry the night before, complaining that there was no point in being honest and open if there was never anybody around to see it. All I had refused to do was hold his hand as we walked back from work, and he made out like I was purposefully blanking him. I called him a spectacle, mentioned something about that tan, and the wedding, and then he really lost it.

I've never argued like that, like I was left dizzy by speech. I'd lost control. Not in that way I used to - there was no violence only words. But I quickly learned that irate verses from my boy's lips and that look in his eye would always be more deadly than any physicality.

So that morning my mind was rehashing all of the things that were said the night before, trying to work out what steps I'd put wrong and where exactly he started being so irrational.

And then I lost his daughter.

She was suddenly gone. Vanished. And I was to blame.

"Look who I found," it was Anne's voice.

I turned around and saw my girl's hand clutching my friend. I fell to the ground like all that had been keeping my body up was adrenaline, my hands posed in a hug for the little girl with blonde hair.

Leah just laughed and I loved the innocent twinkle in those eyes. I knew then I'd come to think of her as my daughter, I had never felt that sense of peace when it wasn't connected to my own kids.

"We had icecream!" She smiled.

"What?"

"Tell Brendan what you just told me Leah," Anne prompted.

And as Leah filled us in on her morning, Anne's eyes met mine and reflected back at me one thought – one man.

**1.20 am, 17/03/2012. An old abandoned warehouse, Southport.**

"Walker," I breathed. I kept the venom out of my voice – no need to give him the show he went to so much effort to achieve. "Nice to see you at last, I was wondering when you were going to put in some alone time with me."

The warehouse, the whole set up looked professional, organised. He always acted like he knew what he was doing but I knew differently. There's a look everyone gets when they bury their first body. Wretched. Polluted. I had seen it in him.

**8.45am, 23/02/2013 . Steven and Brendan's bedroom**

No matter how many times I saw it, it would always look strange - Steven standing starkers in front of me, casually putting on clothes that I hadn't just ripped off his desire-filled trembling body.

That morning he was smiling at me through our bedroom mirror as he got ready for work. I was taking a moment to rest, keep my mind tailored on other things. More important things - like our family and us.

As I watched him and revelled in those _other_ memories involving clothes, I realised I couldn't remember the last time I had done it. It had been an age since I had removed his clothes to leave him in a pile of lust. Steven's insistence that we slept naked saw to any fabric distractions. But I still wanted to see his eyes as I took my time to strip him, his submissive tension that was now owned solely by me – I knew it's beauty, wasting it would be a crime.

But not that morning. I knew he'd only complain that he'd be late for work. I made my way back to my book. I made a pact to do it that night instead, in the heady infusion of alcohol after our dinner party, I would trap him in our room and expose him slowly for my gaze only.

"You're a proper old perve, you!" He giggled, reminding me that he knew exactly how to read me.

I ducked out of the way of a flying towel that had just finished leaving his hair spikey and clean.

"Anyway right I'm trying to talk to you about tonight, Chez has a meeting that ends at three so I thought she could come round earlier, that alright? I know you're in the club but can you get off?"

"For you, Steven, always."

He rolled his eyes at the double entendre.

"Right and you better behave this time Brady!"

I looked up at him above the book – feigning surprise, "me, behave?!"

He beamed at me, as memories played in the light of us.

"I know what wine does to you, I was proper not impressed with the arse slapping last time though – freaked Amy right out!"

He came toward me, crouching close. He balanced on his hands and knees over me on the bed. He took the book out of my hands, folding it onto the bedside table.

"I want her to see this new side of you right, I think we're proper close to convincing her. So hands-off-arse for the meal, OK?"

"If you say so."

He bit his lip, lowered his eyelashes, the act of seduction.

His voice came as a breathy vow, "We can always have a private party after, if you're good."

"Oh, you think you're lucky?!"

"I think _you're_ horny!" He giggled before pressing his lips against mine.

He kissed me quickly. Our perfunctory good morning kiss, just the civil ceremony of two mouths, but as he started to leave he came back for more like he couldn't resist. He removed my reading glasses, stripping me with eyes full of promises. The kiss was long. His tongue sought permission over my bottom lip. And as he pulled away again, he did so with a moan of pleasure - completely uncalled for. He laughed at my expression. I slapped his arse.

"Right work." He told himself more than me, and then left the house shouting. "Oh and you're still off tomorrow? Just cos Lucas is missing that friend of his and Leah's been really good recently so I reckon we should treat 'em, take them to the zoo or sommit. Talk about it later, yeah?"

**10.50am, 18/03/2013. An old abandoned warehouse, Southport.**

"So that's you," Walker said, crowded close. There was a metallic clang as the knife dropped to the floor.

"What's new with me you ask? Oh I've found a lovely view for breakfast - Cute guy, great arse. Panini's aren't too bad either."

I held the taste of blood in my mouth, focusing on everything that wasn't Steven, danger, and unprotected.

**3pm, 23/02/2013. The Hay-Bradys.**

There had never been a door closing like that one. It was like I could breathe peace into every pore. Here was safety.

I could smell the aroma of Steven's homemade burgers drifting from the kitchen; and Cheryl raised a glass at me from where she sat with Amy.

"Alright love?"

Everything I needed in this world was protected by the twist of my key in the lock. I didn't have to think about outside, what had happened in the club, that phone call, Kevin, Walker. For one evening I could take rest.

Steven came towards me with that look of love on his face. I felt the brush of his lips like oxygen.

"Where are the kids?" I asked, trying to keep the panic from my voice.

"In their room."

I relaxed into his answer.

"You alright?" He asked bemused.

"Yes Steven, I'm fine." I let myself fall into routine. "I'm fine. Oh and" I stepped closer to him, ready to share a secret, "I love you too-"

"I didn't say-"

"You did, last night."

"Oh God I was sleep talking?" He did that self-conscious cough-laugh. "That's proper embarrassing!"

I took his kiss like it would be my last. My hand trailed up his neck, pulling him close. It was hot and passionate and I made sure I left him panting. But my hands were nowhere near his arse – I kept my promise.

I kissed him for longer than I should have done, considering the company. We only broke apart with Cheryl's whistles. He took a moment to come back to me, all eyelash-laden and darkened lips, and I wished it wasn't impropriety to take the host of a dinner party away and fuck him loudly. He laughed politely, blushing, and shot me a look to say I was crazy.

He changed the subject as he walked away from me.

"Had a visitor? None of us have seen that jacket before, proper odd that."

**10.15 pm, 18/03/2013. An old abandoned warehouse, Southport.**

The shot echoed through the air with some awful finality. I dropped the gun to the floor; I never wanted to hold one again.

I kicked at the lifeless body. Walker's head was in his jacket, his face paused forever in a look of surprise like he still couldn't believe anybody might be able to outplay him.

**9.30pm, 23/02/2013. Vale House bed and breakfast, Southport.**

"Kids will you keep the noise down?-… Right - what you playing at Brendan, eh?! Where are you? Gone out on the lash? I'm not gonna keep calling you when you clearly don't wanna talk to me but I proper can't believe you. Don't act like I'm being possessive – it's just proper not normal to go out for milk and then not come back for a dinner party, right you arranged it, by the way. What's wrong with you?...Anyway we ate your dinner if you thought you were still gonna get fed here, let me know if you still think you sleep here… OK,… look, just… call me please Brendan, OK. Please? It doesn't matter, whatever has happened doesn't matter, right, just come home – I love you."

I was only supposed to let the message play three times, once for each of them, but I couldn't stop - torturing myself with the goodbye he didn't know he had left. I listened one last time, focusing on everything - the sound of the kids, his sighs. That promise he'd added, travelled through the phone and took lodging somewhere behind my rib.

I flushed the sim away – remaining untraceable.

I laced Kevin's phone between my fingers, unable to believe I'd fallen for it again. This time we were to fight for completion. I dialled "Dad".

"What?" Came the muffled voice at the other end of the phone.

"Simon Walker, been a long time. Time to come out and play?"

**0.05 am, 19/03. An old abandoned warehouse, Southport.**

"I can't go back," I heard Kevin's voice shake behind me.

"What?"

"I can't just go back. I don't know how you do it but I can't just go back to being normal, not now."

As I turned on my heal I saw Kevin crouched on the ground, looking at the pistol like he didn't know what to do with it. I always knew he was too good for our game.

"I helped you kill him!"

"Kevin put the gun down. When we get back, life will just happen, trust me."

He wasn't listening.

The gun was slowly raised to his head with shaking limbs.

"They'll write it up as suicide right? They'll think I shot him and then shot meself."

"You're not gonna shoot yourself Kevin-" I said but I knew from the look on his face I was dangerously far from the truth.

My mind rushed to search for any facts I had gained about him – why I couldn't I even remember if he had a family?

"Maxine right? Anne's sister, you like her don't you?"

"I couldn't." He said slowly, as he stepped closer to certitude, finality. "I couldn't, not now. How can you even stand Ste touching you?! We're pollution, people like me and you, and him," his gaze wandered over Walker like he was seeing a monster for the first time. "We bring bad to innocent people."

His breath shook.

"We're pollution."

His final words echoed for hours in that warehouse. Before that moment, I had never seen anybody take their own life.

**11.00 pm, ****26/3/2013. ****Ste's bedroom**

In the twilight of half-remembered dreams I heard Steven's moans, whimpers, cries - the make-believe rhythm of the last four weeks. And then one was so loud it ripped through my soul.

I knew I wasn't sleeping anymore.

I forced my eyes open, adrenaline pounding in my heart - my need to protect forcing every muscle into fight or flight.

**A/N:**

I really wasn't going to leave that as a cliff-hanger, but there would be too little for the next chapter if I hadn't.

I know I'm cheating a little – "they" wouldn't actually say both deaths were suicide; and I also really don't like Kevin this much, this is in no way a prediction (clearly). But the arc came to me mid-flow and I liked it so I just went with it…

Oh and I know Brendan doesn't wear glasses, I just have a thing about Emmett's! I hope you do too and I didn't spoil that image for you.


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N:**

You guys are awesome, you really make me happy you know that? I really hope you continue to enjoy and leave so lovely reviews :D

There's a couple more chapters than I originally predicted – this (which is quite short) and then the epilogue which brings us back to the prologue. I've written it all! WHOOOP! I actually completed a Stendan fic! *does celebratory dance*.

**Warnings:**

I feel like I should warn you that the beginning is rather cheddarish and cliché hopefully you've already eaten ;)

Other than that there's just a lot of angst, and I should confess that I have this sick fantasy that at least one of you starts shouting at the computer screen!

**Chapter Five**

**11.00 pm, ****25/3/2013. ****Ste's bedroom**

_In the twilight of half-remembered dreams I heard Steven's moans, whimpers. And then one was so loud it ripped through my soul. _

_I knew I wasn't sleeping anymore. _

_I forced my eyes open, adrenaline pounding in my heart - my need to protect forcing every muscle into fight or flight._

"Elephant's have big feet," he said.

What?

"Did you know? Proper big feet!"

Jesus.

He was sleep talking, that was all. He was just talking in dreams. I felt normality clash hard against me and my body shook as the fight I barely possessed anymore drained away.

"No, it's really important. You know cats."

Steven Hay was a sleep talker. It usually happened if he could sense a difference in the room, or in us. He did it every night when we first started sleeping together. It was hilarious at first – the chattiest bloke I'd ever been with didn't manage to shut up even in dreams. Eventually it got annoying - all these nonsensical conversations he insisted we had on a nightly basis, that he would remember nothing about the next day. I developed a natural impulse to hide my head in my pillow. But tonight I'd missed it so much, I had to indulge myself.

"Cats?"

"Silly!" He laughed. "Cats are kings."

"Hmmm?"

"I have to tell something!"

"Why don't you tell me in the morning, Steven?" I said. I knew that what you need to do with a sleep talker is tempt them back to sleep.

"Nu-uh you know now, but it's secret...I love double B!"

"What?"

"B.B….Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeb," and then he laughed like he had made the best joke in the world but there was this grin on his face that seemed to shine with honesty and I knew he meant every word.

I felt it in every part of me. His confession stretching powerfully until it took over every inch of darkness within me.

I almost kissed him, woke him up by kissing him - needing to see that look of love on his face. But as I leaned closer, his sleep rushed something else.

"Leah loves pollution!"

It was that word. The word that possessed those dreadful memories - the strength of Kevin's conviction that there was no good in us at all, that we didn't deserve anything after the pain we put others through.

The trail of moonlight picked up my scars and I knew I shouldn't be there. I shouldn't have taken salvage in Steven's rest; the peace he offered that I was so worthless of. I felt my cross against my bare skin, the reminder that I had broken my pact.

The inescapable fact was I had only ever been living on borrowed time.

Steven would always have a hold on me, I'd committed my heart to him and it wasn't something I could forget. But I needed to leave. I pushed myself away from him.

I was in the kitchen before I felt his pull on me diminish.

**11.20 pm, ****25/3/2013. The Hay's Kitchen.**

I stood alone in my boxers and shirt. Cold had passed through my every muscle before my mind could stop rushing and I could focus on my fucked up choice.

I could either leave him, hurt him in the short term but keep him safe. And close myself away from the only sense of normality and belonging I would feel, for an eternity. Turn my back on home and leave myself with no return.

Or I could stay, until something like this happened again and this time I might fail and he could get hurt, or worse. But at least, for whatever short a time we had, I would be home.

I was stuck between a hope that he wouldn't get hurt and a certitude that he never would. I was lost in a storm between courage and conviction.

I felt more than saw him appear behind me. And as I turned around his eyes filled with shock and surprise, fading to mild despair.

I translated his emotions into rejection - he didn't want me there.

He laughed and shook his head as he walked to the other side of the kitchen. He turned his back on me so I could no longer read him. He poured himself a glass of water.

"I better go."

"I was thinking," he called me back, and then I wished I hadn't stayed. "Do you wanna know what the best thing about being with Doug were?"

That he was the complete and total opposite of me – I almost said.

"If he woke up before me and didn't wanna wake me he'd always leave a cup of coffee, always, right? Even if we'd had a fight, there'd be coffee. It was just a sign that even if we didn't see each other he still loved me, wanted me around. Noah did it too actually, when I stayed at his like." He shook his head again and that bitter laugh that was becoming too familiar rebounded from the walls.

"Maybe it's a 'gay' thing." There was some impetus with the way he said that word, some enforced bitterness on our sexuality that tasted stale.

I felt the jealousy of his past lovers echo through me; I didn't need him to tell me he had been happier before, I knew it with every fibre of my being. I didn't need to hear that other men and their coffee meant more to him than anything I had ever tried to do.

"If you wanted me to make you a drink, Steven, you could just ask," I said.

He stared at me like that statement was purely idiotic, like I'd completely missed his point.

"I'm not on about the coffee!"

He turned his back on me hastily, as if just the act of looking at me pained him. He gripped hold of the sideboard until his knuckles bled white. He swore under his breath.

Silence stretched between us again. The vastness amplified the miscommunications, the avoidance and the lies.

"Do you want me to go?" I asked.

When his voice came again it was quiet, like he was drained of energy.

"Y'know Amy was the first person I met that I knew wouldn't leave me, that she'd always love me, no matter what. I didn't really have proper friends, I didn't have a sister," he turned back to intensify the presence of that word.

"No one really even proper liked me. I was fourteen before I met a single person who thought I was worth fuck all," I felt my heart crumble in his pain again, my soul pulled tighter to his.

"Fourteen – right? I'm not gonna lie it was fucking awful, we all know I didn't treat her right. She scared the shit out of me right, but one day I just made an effort to stop being scared anymore, juvie, counselling, all that helped – yeah. But really I just got over it."

He turned on his heal. His blue eyes shone into the darkness with such an intensity it was like he was standing in front of me.

"I got over it," he repeated.

He took a moment and then walked towards me. He stood right by me, so I could sense all of him. His warm, sweet presence felt like a gift I didn't deserve.

He looked into my eyes for ages like his ability to read me was failing.

"All she did was love me," he whispered with a shrug.

And then he walked away, back to his bedroom. He left me with a long glance, like he wanted to call me with him but he was losing the power to.

I was alone in the dark again. The claustrophobia felt comforting, habitual. The emptiness bathed me, and I almost turned on my heel never to see him again.

Almost.

But then something happened to me in that kitchen. Whether it was because he left the door open, or because I could hear his words still singing, or some other unnoticeable touch of fate, I felt something shift within me.

I felt like I could see a timeline of all of our changes, a map of all the places we'd been to get right back there, on the precipice of us. And I knew leaving him would only ever be the same as losing him.

When I met him three years ago I didn't know that he would be the person to change my life. Knowing me I probably wouldn't have fucked him if I did, I probably wouldn't even have given him the job - I would have avoided my perverted fantasies of him for the sake of not waking up. But whether I would have chosen it or not, Steven Hay, the scally turned deli-owner from a small town in Chester, had had more of an impact on my life than any other person. And we'd remained by each other's sides through everything, like anything else was unthinkable. He'd seen the devil in me, he'd seen the weakness, he'd seen all of me and he was still there, there was still love there. I'd pushed him away so many times, using violence, using blokes and girls, using families, and using flipping countries. And he was still there. I'd even gone as far as citing God to separate us. But in that moment I realised that He never would have put Steven in my life, and back in my life, so many times if I wasn't supposed to fight for this; He'd even put a smoking nun in an elevator to tell me that. I had never met any other person who could make my soul burn as brightly as Steven could achieve with just a single look, regardless of whether that look was lust, or anger, or love. There had never been anybody who could calm me as much or who could make me as gentle. The days where I sat helplessly losing him to finality were some of the darkest of my life, I felt like my soul had crumbled under that minibus. I knew with a conviction unknown to me that I would never want another day where I couldn't do anything to help him; the meaning of me was to protect him.

I may have been as fucked up and dark as they come; I knew there may never be a time when the light outshone the dark. Steven was certainly no angel. We were going to fight till we were blue in the face, and I was going to make him cry and he was going to make me hate him, from time to time. But I would always love him, even when I did hate him, I would love him every single day till I was in my grave. I would hurt myself before hurting him, I'd lay down my life for him. And I knew that if there was one person on this planet who could teach me how to stay it would be the man who had taught me how to be honest, how to trust, how to be gay – in all definitions of the word.

As I stood in that kitchen and breathed in the hope of a new future I felt like I deserved it - I deserved a second chance to try and make Steven happy.

And this time I was going to try to make him happy for the rest of my life.

I made him a coffee, before I went back into the bedroom to join him.


	7. Epilogue

**A/N:**

So who else feels wrecked after yesterday?! Welcome to March, we'll get through this together…I think! Honestly feel like this entire fic is about somebody other than Brendan now but oh well! This is my solemn promise not to write anything that breaks Stendan up, or has one for an eternity without the other, for these next couple of weeks. It wouldn't be me if it wasn't angsty, but (like Doug?!) I believe in the strength of their love, even if they don't.

Thank you so much to everyone who's supported me through writing this, like TracesOfTrueLove for the beta, PatriciaJessic and Kabr for the character and plot pointers, and every single one of you who's left a review or followed or favourited – I really appreciate you all :) This is actually the last chapter :O, I actually did what I set out to do!

**About this fic:**

This epilogue takes it back to the prologue and that's why the tense changes – hope that follows :)

I was always gonna tell it like this, it might not be quite what you were expecting but I hope it makes sense. Also I have issues with the fact that Ste doesn't know about Seamus yet, and I think that shows…(sorry!)

Hope you all enjoy it and leave us some lovely words cos they really make me smile :D

I couldn't resist but write a More Than Words add on to this (it is what I originally intended to do I guess!) But its coming out very very M, and cos I get that that isn't everybody's cup of tea I'll upload it as a separate document (at the weekend). I added on the end as a preview!

**Warnings:**

Absolutely none, even feels comparatively fluffy now! I guess its Stendans brand of fluff!

**Epilogue**

**11.45 pm, 25/3/2013. Ste's bedroom**

He barely meets my gaze as I bring him the coffee. But I see the hidden smile on his face, and as always that's all it takes him to make something within me shine.

He tilts his head to the bed, his lips pursed - a sign that he's welcoming me but he's not going to say it, yet. I take my shirt off slowly, uneasily. I feel his observation of each scar and remember his mouth tending to me. He looks away as I reach for his gaze.

"_So did you fuck Walker?" He asks slowly, "What?! It's not like you haven't done it before - twice. It's not a proper random question, actually."_

_I climb into bed next to him, making disclosures of love in my head._

_"Before you killed him did you fuck him?"_  
_"Who says I killed him?!" I can't escape the accuracy of his gaze, and I know this, us, is going to be the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. But without a doubt it will be the best thing I've ever done. "No, Steven I didn't fuck him."_  
_"No? Have someone el-"_

_I rest my head on my hand and give him that look, the one I know he won't struggle to read - the 'I don't want anybody but you' look._

_"A month, impressive stuff. That's pretty much a vow of celibacy for you aint it?"_  
_"Not anymore, I don't just fuck anymore. And who said I was celibate?"_

I delight in the laugh from his lips, and use that look again to bring blood rushing to his cheeks. I need him to remember that he knows me.

He takes a sip of the coffee, and I catch another smile in his eye as he realises I remember him perfectly.

"And you?" I ask, trying to keep the jealousy out of my voice.

"Yeah-" he scoffs, "-cos there's so much talent around here, I was with a new bloke every night, me," he looks at me like he's recalling bitter words I've shouted at him.

I let a moment beat.

"I thought, y'know maybe Yankidoodle," I say as I take a sip from my mug. I aim for dismissive and achieve nowhere near. Those half dreams haunted me every night in the warehouse - the doubts, the shame that I should have never called him back when I wasn't enough.

"He's," he turns to face me and laughter fills his eyes, like he's ready to share a private joke. "He's with your McQueen bloke!"

"Oh." I say, Doug's new circumstances hitting like a punch to the gut, Steven's answer – like I came so close to losing him.

"Jealous much?!" Steven complains, arms crossing over in a sulk – shaking his head. "Back-up plan was he? Seriously what is it with my ex's and JP, are we really that much like each other?!"

I'm not an ex anymore, surely?! With his words he tells me that I need to fight for this, that I need to prove to him that I'm staying, and that I need to promise him there's never been anybody like him, especially not a random, rebound fuck.

"He's nothing like you, Steven."

He looks at me, eyes flared as he swallows hard, like he hears those simple words as a declaration of love.

"Good, like I wanna belong to that bunch of psycho's," his expression flickers, like he's trying to sulk but he's not sure he remembers how.

And then he breathes low, turning to look at me like he can't resist. His hand trembles as he reaches for me.

"Got my own little bunch of psycho's right here aint I?" He whispers through a bitten lip.

His hand sweeps over my jaw, his fingers mapping out my stubble, his words shining over me like he's referring to me.

I turn into his touch. Place a kiss against his palm. Place a smile on his lips.

"So there's been-" I can let the jealousy come through loudly now I'm in his embrace.

He laughs, shaking his head. And then his fingers take hold of my tache and pull hard.

"Ow!"

"You're a proper idiot you!" And then, as a furrow of confusion starts to appear on my face his words rush.

"You will never get this will you? It's been three fucking years and you still don't get it! You do all these things – love my kids, wear that shirt, take bullets for me, leave me your cross, make an idiotic pact with God to save me. All these things and you still don't get that maybe there's this part of you, however small and proper infuriating, however much it likes to run away and go into hiding, there will always be a part of you that deserves love…that deserves _our _love. So no, Brendan, there's not been anybody else right, because… and let's see if you can understand this yet… I don't want anybody else the way I want you, I never have done."

"You have a big mouth for such a tiny fella you know that?!"

We're both laughing now, like our hearts are making music.

"Stop calling me tiny, and stop fucking forgetting to kiss me!"

I give him those dark eyes that I know turn him to molten cells, and my accent comes thick and deep the way I know he loves, "ye want me to kiss ye?"

"Fine, you know what? Proper don't bother," he says shaking his head, sitting back against the wall, his arms crossing over himself again.

But before his lips have time to form a proper sulk I make sure their melded to mine, being opened by my tongue. My hands cup his head as I refuse to let him go. I kiss him like I need to consume him, trying to tell him that I'm never going to stop. I feel his body weaken a little, the way it does when I kiss him like this – without warning - and I pull away so he can take a breath.

I keep my hands on his face, so he knows I'm not leaving. I keep my face close to his, so I don't sense anything but him.

He breathes heavily against my lips; I can almost feel the surprise and lust reverberate from his smile.

"Better?" I ask.

"I'm not sure yet," he teases before pressing his lips against mine again, kissing me like I'm the only thing that keeps him strong.

We kiss like we're deprived of each other, like we haven't just spent an evening fucking, and I guess we haven't - not like this. Not in the way we learned when we came back together for the last time, the way it is when we are committed to each other. It's more than simply every muscle within us, and it's more than purely every one of our heartbeats, it's the eternal reunion of our entire beings.

I slide him up against the wall and sinuously he moves to sit in my lap. His arms pull me tighter to him and I feel the reminder of the scars.

"I've got to at least tell you what happened Steven, you should know," I breathe heavily.

He sighs, his body dropping away from me, but his hands stay comfortingly on my shoulders. I get a perverse strength from the knowledge he isn't going to let me go now.

"OK." He nods and then seems to reconsider, "Why though? I mean if it's gonna help you… I'll listen, obviously, but that's not proper like you is it? You hate telling me anything… you've gotta work on that by the way, right?... But about this – right I don't need to hear anything you don't wanna tell me. I know what happened, and I know you only left here to protect us, to keep our family out of it… That's all that matters to me."

"Steven-" he deserves so much more than that.

"Brendan, I love you, and I know you right? I know you wouldn't have done nothing you didn't need to. And it's all over now anyway. What matters is this." He says, indicating the two of us.

And then he brings his sweet lips up to mine again, just a taste.

"This matters."

And I realise what he's doing - he's protecting the sanctity of us. He's keeping us safe away from the monsters and offering me sanctuary. He's drawing our bridge, filling our moat, giving us armour.

And when he kisses me it's soft and delicate like forever is our emotion.

He's stronger than he looks this man of mine.

Moments beat easier now.

"Kevin-" I breathe eventually, knowing I want him to know only one part of my time away. "I didn't shoot Kevin."

"Walker?"

"No."

His face blanches, and I know we are learning to communicate without words once again – he feels my pain as his own.

"Oh God."

"I tried-" I tell him, and he takes my trembling hands, twisting fingers, and relaxes them in his own. "I couldn't stop him, but I tried, I really tried."

There have been few times in my adult life when I felt as weak and powerless as I did when I watched that boy's body fall to the floor. But all it takes is Steven's, "I know", to make some of that pain disappear.

"I'm sorry," Steven says and I can see there's not one part of him that thinks I don't deserve his solace.

And then his lips are on mine and he's kissing me like I'm strength and power, and he's kissing me like there's only good in me and he trust me to protect him. He tears me away from the presence of Kevin's last words, and keeps me safe within us.

Finally, his hands wrap my neck so we're cocooned in us and I can feel myself heal.

He rests his face into my neck as he pulls away and I let myself breathe him in, knowing there's no need to ever breathe him out.

"I don't want-" I start to tell him slowly, and I worry the thought might make a mockery of me once breathed to life. "-to do it anymore. I don't want to do any of it anymore."

As I feel his head lift slowly, I start to worry that he thinks I mean us, but the thought vanishes as soon as I see his smile.

"Then don't." He says, "you can come back now, you've done it all. Walker's gone, Warren's gone, that other blokes gone – the one who stabbed Joel, he's gone. They're all gone, right. It's all gone. The dealings finished right, it's all over. It can all be in the past if you want it, can't it?"

He looks at me like it would be easy, like creating this second life, one where I'm good and kind, is easy. I want him to be right more than anything.

"I'd like that," I tell him defectively; I know there will never be a time when I can stop looking over my shoulder.

But as I say it he smiles and I get this feeling that maybe, with him, eventually I could.

I smile and press my lips to his once more, I never want to stop kissing him like this, slowly and softly like we have an eternity to just be part of each other. There's an immature Stevenless version of myself three years ago that's cowering at me!

Steven tempts our bodies to lay together, my left arm around him, as he rests into my chest. Moments stretch into happiness for us. Never in my life have I hugged anyone for this long, but I want to spend the entire night like this, wrapped in him. I want to spend my life like this.

Eventually, he leans up. His hand maps over my face, smooth's my tache, runs down to my neck and up. I just watch him, those eyes are now painting a thousand emotions and a million hopes.

"What _do_ you want?" He asks eventually, making full eye contact.

"You," I whisper, "us, our family."

He nods.

"Y'know Steven I want us to have a real family," I tell him, made stronger by his smiles.

"Sounds good to me," he whispers as I watch something like a sunrise in his eyes.

"But I'm gonna need your help," I warn him "I'm not good at this, I don't _do_ this."

"Tell me something I don't know," he laughs.

"I'm gonna screw up."

"Welcome to grown up relationships and parenthood!"

"I mean it! You know I'm gonna get angry - I wouldn't ever hurt you" I rush to reassure him but he just smiles like he already knows, "but I'm an idiot - I'm gonna say things I don't mean, I'm gonna forget to try, and I'm gonna keep forgetting bloody valentine's day every year for the rest of my life. There are gonna be times you wanna chuck me out the house, and there are gonna be times I leave anyway-"

"You don't need to introduce me to you Brendan, I already know how this works," he smiles like he couldn't want anything more, "it don't matter, as long as you keep remembering to come back home to me."

But I have to remind him of the darkness in me, that no matter how much we try I might always be irreparable.

"Sometimes… sometimes I'm worried I'm gonna end up like him, like my father, that one day I'm just gonna to turn into him."

"It's never gonna happen... Listen to me," he insists, taking my head in his hands, creating lasting eye contact. "You are nothing like Seamus, Brendan, I wouldn't love you if you were."

"He's my father, y'know he's my blood. I-"

"You think Cheryl's like him?"

"Of course not."

"Well then - just shut up for a moment, right. Brendan, there is so much good in you that you don't even see, yeah it hides behind this big-tough-guy bigger-tache act, but it's there and I've only seen it get stronger. Right, and I know this thing proper scares you, but the way I see it you need to hold on to that, dya think Saemus was ever scared? Do you think he's scared now?"

He lets his words take effect, slowly, never leaving my embrace.

"You think you can cure me?" I ask.

I don't mean for the words to sound as bitter as they do. But Steven doesn't even look phased, he just shakes his head.

"That's just it, I'm not even gonna try. Right you don't need curing Brendan, you just need reminding sometimes that you're not just this bad guy, that you're so much more. You're more to me, to my kids, to Chez."

"I thought you liked the big-tough-guy bigger-tache act."

"I can learn to live with him, right truth be told sometimes I think he's quite hot."

"Really?"

"Hm-hm – very occasionally. But every day I'm in love with the man underneath. Right… I love you…"

And there's a pause like he's waiting for something.

For a moment there's just the silence of two hearts beating.

And then he's kissing me, wrapping his arms around me, and I cup his face with my hands.

He lies back down on the pillow and I turn to face him.

We stay close, closer than close. Sharing the same pillow, the same breath, the same heartbeat. All I can sense are those beautiful blue eyes looking right back into mine. And I see everything I've ever been and everything I've ever wanted to be reflected back at me – I see my home.

Sometimes the English vocabulary is so weak - how can love even define a moment like this?

"So do you wanna know the best thing about being with you?" He asks and I feel him tending to the scars of earlier.

I turn away but he doesn't wait for my answer

"This, just this, right just being with the bloke who I think about every day, I don't remember a day I weren't thinking about him… It's not an obsession if they love you back right?!"

He presses his hand to my heart, knows the pattern of it's beat only for him.

"And you don't have to say it to make it true." He smiles and I realise I've not told him, that I've given him little more than fucks and protests since I've been back.

He laughs nervously, drinking in my expression.

"I thought you were done looking scared, it's OK I won't tell anyone – I'll proper take it back if-" my finger against his lips pauses his words, and I take his kiss for mine.

"I'm done _being_ scared Steven," I promise him, knowing there's never been a place I've relaxed more than in his embrace. "I love you; with all my heart I love you."

He pauses, like he's fading into the words. His blue eyes wide and shocked, and then they fill with pride. And he takes my kiss, with a finger rested on my chin.

"So what's the best thing about being with me?" He asks, and then he's laughing again "joking! You don't have to try to come up with anything, you-"

"OK, so now it's your turn to shut up alright?" I tell him as I trap his words with my body, turning him around and resting into the bed as I arch my body over his.

He stays so open for me, his eyes looking right into mine like he's unable to look away, like he's already given me all of him and there's nothing to hide. It's like I can see us shining from him. Was it really twenty four hours ago that I thought this was irreparably over? Now I'm sure of nothing but his love.

"I don't have to come up with anything no," I breathe a kiss onto his lips.

"I already know what it is," Another kiss.

"The best thing about being with you – Steven – is" and another.

"I'm home now."

**03.20 am, 26/3/2013. Ste's and Brendan's bedroom**

There's a finger trail across the healing skin over my heart, backward and forward. I look at him and his eyes are dark, skin pale, he looks like he's in a reverie of pain.

"Are you alright?"

He jumps like he's coming back to reality hard. He nods quickly, but as he meets my gaze he knows I don't believe him.

"I just can't get it out my head – right, how proper close I got to loosing you."

He looks like the words might break him and I know I have to tell him that I'm never leaving him. It's time for my oath of eternity.

"You never would have lost me Steven – do you understand me? I will love you forever so even if it had been different, even if it hadn't been me that came back, you never would have lost me."

"Are you saying you'd haunt me? Cos I proper had a thing for Casper as a kid me!" He laughs, and as always he brings us from the darkness with just a smile.

"You're one screwed up little fella aren't you?!"

"Yeah well that's obvious innit – I love you don' I?!"

"Hmmm…go to sleep now." I tell him.

He bites his lip as he looks at me, "see you in the morning?" He asks like it's a question.

I kiss him - a silent promise he will see me every morning.

He presses his cheek against my chest, looking like he'd quite happily sleep right there and there is not one cell of me that has a problem with that. I catch a glimpse of us in the mirror, we look good like this.

My mind can't stop rushing over this evening, everything that was said, I've never talked as openly as I did tonight. I've never said so much and I'm still reeling three hours later. So I don't try to sleep – I just watch us. I have never felt as close to any single person as I do to Steven right now, like there isn't a single part of me he hasn't seen tonight.

I run my hand down his spine and his body shifts closer as if that's even possible. I feel good like this, like there's good in me and there's something fated about me protecting him in dreams.

I replay our conversations across the day, unable to believe that less than 24 hours ago I was ready to run away from him, that I thought he wouldn't want me.

Here and now I know nothing like I know his love.

There's two things he said tonight that keep coming back to me,

"…it's secret...I love double B!"

"It's not an obsession if they love you back right?! And you don't have to say it to make it true. I thought you were done looking scared, it's OK I won't tell anyone!"

They're declarations of love but they just taste wrong - like there's something flawed in the way he said them. We haven't been secret for longer than I even want to think about, since I abused my love for him for the sake of one-upmanship. But however harshly I ripped us from privacy, however many times I still refuse to hold his hand, I've never wanted to go back there. I like kissing him in the street to create that look of proud surprise in his eyes. I like the way that people started to look at me when I was with him before. And secretly I like that his husband gave him up for us, I appreciate Leanne for looking after his kids for the 24 hours we needed just to be together. Because everyone knows that he brings out the best in me, that we're strong and that we're always going to be together.

"Steven-"

He moans like he was just drifting off.

"Wha' I thought you were going to sleep?" He complains.

"Yeah, I will in a sec, there's just one more thing."

He leans up, looking at me in confusion, asking me silently what more I could possibly tell him. I know that if I don't tell him tonight, when my heart is so open, I never will.

"I want you to get a divorce."

"Oh look…" he maps his hand over his forehead, worried. "Right, I didn't really mean that stuff about Doug to sound like that – I wasn't really talking about him, or Noah. What I meant was… look I know there's times you're gonna have to leave, and there's times you're gonna wanna be alone, I signed up to that, it just don't make it any easier…God I sound proper clingy don't I?"

I stare at him – how can he think that his divorce would just be about my feelings regarding that Yank? I've heard far too much about his exes this evening. All I want to know of is his future, whether there's a part for me in it, whether I could make him happy every day.

Slowly, hesitantly his brow unfurls like the dawn of understanding.

"Oh…wait…you're not saying you want-"

"What I don't wanna do is rush anything, I mean it takes a while to get a divorce you know-"

He nods, this smile pulling his lips as excitement astounds his eyes.

"And knowing us we're probably gonna have argued a hundred times over by that point, and we should talk about it again then, make sure it's still the best for both of us. We'd need to talk to the kids, yours and mine, and you to Amy and we'll see what they say."

He's being unnervingly quiet.

"And you know, we should talk through our options cos a ceremony might be best. And just so we're clear, there is no way I'd ever want us to share…the _day_, with anyone else, or have hundreds of guests we don't know from Adam. But…if it was just small and quiet, and us…well, it might be alright…"

I wait for him to say something, he just looks shocked.

"Breathe, Steven!" I remind him.

He lets out one long puff of air and then his eyes sparkle.

"God you're not gonna start crying on me now, are you?!" I tease.

"Course not!" He screws his face up like he's trying really hard to sulk.

"You're one wet lad you know that?"

"Oh I'm wet! You do realise you just proposed to me?!"

"Provisionally, yeah. Are you saying yes?"

"Provisionally." He teases and then he kisses me, slow and drawn out like his real answer is a thousand yes's.


End file.
